


Dolce

by rukafais



Series: an endless song [3]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game)
Genre: ESPECIALLY when it's shipping, M/M, it is my solemn duty to put them in situations where they are totally inelegant and undignified, when given characters who are usually poised and elegant and dignified
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-13
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-08-23 04:12:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16611710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rukafais/pseuds/rukafais
Summary: meaning; sweetlyThey are simple interactions, simple things; a kindness offered, a sidelong look, a vulnerable moment only he has seen.He really does try not to read between the lines, those unwritten, silent notes that he’s not even sure are there.He really does try not to fall further than he already has.(Too late for that,his own voice tells him in his head, and he pushes it aside.)





	Dolce

It has been a long time since he’s had romantic interest in anyone ( _at all,_ his mind corrects). Grimm, though he stirs the hearts of the crowd, maintains a professional distance even to the most fervent admirers. Divine, surprisingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly), seems to be an expert at it.

(Some of her potential paramours seem to vanish after a night. He decides it’s _much_ better not to ask. He’s never been naturally curious, and he sees no reason to start, especially with _that._ )

He’s had his share of admirers, of people starstruck by his music, his technical skill or him, in general (something that puzzles him to no end and something that Divine has teased him for). Most seem to take his disinclination to talk as a challenge, something to break, which he dislikes. It gives him no room to breathe, no room to _think_ about his words.

_“You need not force yourself to talk, my dear musician. I will make the time to listen.” The Troupe Master inclines his head, eyes crinkling in a hidden smile. “From someone who speaks so little, I value every word.”_

But all that aside - none of them had ever managed to strike even the slightest spark in his heart. He had politely, and quietly, turned them away, and maintained that distance even in the face of much affection and enthusiasm (unwanted and declined). It wasn’t something he looked for, regardless.

Perhaps he might have, in a different life. But that was gone; burned away by the flame whose vessel he now serves at his request. (Not that there had been much to burn; there was so little of it left.

_A young, lanky bug - his age? close to? it seems so - sits beside him. Listens to the music from a lonely, broken instrument, and offers him a choice to leave his emptied world behind._

_More than anything, it is the note of sympathy in his voice that convinces him, the warmth that reaches his heart. It’s something he didn’t realise he’d lost. It’s something he didn’t know he’d ever feel again._ )

It has been a long, long time since he’d thought about the past. He doesn’t know why it comes back to him now.

But he’s not one to deny the places his mind wanders when all there is to do is practice. So he lets well-trained motions take over his playing - and that familiar, broken song that has long since been repaired rises from his instrument and breathes life into old memories. It warms the air, and his thoughts.

It is not something he can forget, after all; it is not something he wants to forget. This music is a reminder of the first time they met.

* * *

Some days, Grimm is simply tired.

He slumbers much more deeply at these times; the flame within him recedes. Not in danger of going out, but simply exhausting what reserves it has, and burning low for a while.

It is a kindness, perhaps, from the Nightmare King to his vessel ( _a form of caring for oneself; where the god begins and the vessel ends is an unanswerable question_ ). Destined to travel endlessly, to live such long lives, to be burdened with the task of extinguishing fallen kingdoms so that something else might rise anew from its ashes. To be born from the death of their predecessor, knowing that one day, they will raise their own child and burn to feed them, too.

It is at these times - when the Heart beats slow and steady, where warmth seeps into suddenly-aching limbs - that he rests in darkness and dreams of nothing. Closed off from the world, wrapped in a cocoon of shadow and silence; almost completely still. _Rest,_ says the god ( _“Rest,”_ he tells himself) and he obeys (and he relents).

Breath slows, and heartbeat slows, to a steady and uninterrupted pace. A temporary hibernation, a release from all burdens, just for a while.

It’s music that wakes him from his sleep prematurely. It echoes through the dark, and he can’t help but be drawn to it.

(He is not the first of his incarnations to love music, nor will he be the last. But.

It calls, and he follows; it is too familiar to ignore. _It is a song from younger years, and it paints pictures of a performance in a rainswept, verdant land; a celebration of burning the old to bring in the new, spreading the ashes of what came before to prepare the ground for what comes after._

 _He follows, because as he remembers it he understands, implicitly, who is playing it, and who it is being played for._ )

That tiredness still pervades; his movements are slow and boneless and utterly ridiculous. He doesn’t so much _descend_ from his position as simply let go of his perch and flop lazily onto the ground, a pile of limbs half-entangled in a cape. He lies there a while, eyes flickering open and closed as he decides whether this interruption is worth pursuing or he should just sleep right here, and it’s only some vague urge to follow up that pushes him to roll over and attempt to stand.

Music fills the air. He gently latches onto a curtain, and step by step he follows it, though he already knows who he’ll find.

* * *

He had thought his master wouldn’t awaken for a while yet; he always announces his periods of rest. Even if he did not, it has always been easy to tell when he was deep in sleep, unable to be woken by normal means.

(It had scared Brumm at first, to the amusement of the Grimmkin. And though they’d laughed and reassured him that it was simply a rest, a break from the world, he had lingered in the chamber many times, even so.

His master breathes in a steady, even rhythm, and he counts along in perfect time; inhale and exhale. His heartbeat is steady and uninterrupted.

Signs of life, signs of continued living. Check for it. _This is what you do, when they are breathing; this is what you do, when they are not-_

That memory ( _that fear, that ghost of times long past_ ) never quite leaves him.)

And yet, here he is. 

His eyes are half-closed, and he shows none of his usual poise; he ungracefully drapes himself across the pile of cushions Brumm is currently using as a seat, and his cape and ungainly posture makes him look uncannily like a throw rug someone tossed over the whole thing to hide the mess.

The musician can’t help but snort at how ridiculous Grimm looks, though it’s short-lived; his master’s eyes crinkle and he flashes a crooked, lazy smile at Brumm, and that makes his heart skip a beat.

“Ah, is that laughter I hear?” Even his master’s speech is a clear indication of how awake he really is (not very much); it is soft and lazy and dips wildly in volume for no reason at all. “Wonderful. Truly wonderful, my dear friend. I’m glad to have woken so early.”

“Mrmm. You’re barely awake, master.” It’s easier to speak if he doesn’t look at him. “You should...still be asleep.”

“Mmmhm,” comes the mumbled reply. “Maybe so. Maybe so.” There’s a shift, a movement; he sees Grimm attempts to sit upright in the corner of his eye and give up almost immediately, which gets another snort from Brumm that he tries immediately to hide. “But your music was so delightful....I couldn’t help but want to listen more.”

Ah. So _that’s_ the reason. Brumm...doesn’t know how to feel about that, though he feels his face growing hot, because of course it does. At times like this there’s plenty of benefits to wearing a mask, though his master seems to see right through them anyway.

“You can listen just as easily when you’re asleep, master. Mrmm. Actually, it would be less effort.”

“Nnnnn. Hmmnn. Nnrnn. Not as much as I’d like...” The noises he makes before speaking are somewhere between a purr and a hum and the musician is suddenly experiencing a dilemma of _the sounds he makes are endearing but is it really appropriate to think that what if he can read my mind what if he’s reading my mind **right now**_ panicked thoughts variety.

Brumm dares another backwards glance and finds himself caught; Grimm’s eyes are barely visible crimson slits in the semi-darkness, but they still seem to pierce through him and hold him there.

“But,” Grimm continues, as if he’s not making direct eye contact for no apparent reason, “if you’re so insistent that I sleep, I can sleep... _right_ here. Anywhere I want, can I not? I _am_ the master, after all.” He huffs in lazy laughter at his own small barely-a-joke, and it’s so _vulnerable_ and so completely at odds with what Brumm normally sees of him that it teases another startled laugh from the musician in response.

More movement from behind him, and Grimm slides unceremoniously down the pile of cushions to flop beside him ( _to be closer? no, surely not, surely not_ ), so that Brumm no longer needs to turn his head to see him. He crosses his main pair of arms in front of him, apparently preferring to use them to rest his head rather than the collection of cushions right behind.

After a moment, his eyes flutter closed and don’t open; his breathing steadies. Brumm feels a little less like his heart is going to escape from his chest entirely, like the heat of his face will somehow burn his mask away.

He breathes in and out and matches that steady, even rhythm of the slumbering bug beside him, and continues playing in perfect time.

**Author's Note:**

> ao3 keeps making me manually input the ship tag for these two and it's a very minor inconvenience but also just makes me more determined to keep writing so
> 
> yknow, it works out in the end
> 
> also i am not good at traditionally writing romance but what i AM good at is writing characters being silly, so,


End file.
